I must start off by honestly applauding all clubs campaigning in the Debmarine Namibia Premiership, who have for the past few months gone beyond their call of duty to ensure that they do things differently in terms of marketing their brands and ensuring they remain visible at all times. 

Unlike in the past, local clubs were only seen and heard on match days, and at times only once or twice on radio, making some on-and-off announcements. They were nowhere to be seen on social media platforms, as required in this modern world of sport, and their brands were, as a result, totally disconnected from their fans. 

But this season, many of the clubs have really embraced the usefulness, effectiveness, potential and power of social media in making sure their brands, messages and programmes are well- communicated to their supporters, and that supporters also buy into the clubs’ visions. 

They must be applauded for that, and must equally be encouraged to do even more in that space in order to further propel our local game. 

Clubs like African Stars and others are really setting the bar high with the introduction of livestreamed matches, and immediately posting match interviews and results on all their social media platforms. That’s how things should be done, and that’s the only way we can catch up with the rest of the world.  

But while I’m applauding them for the good work in that space, I must also express concern with the way they are failing to connect their growing social media presence with securing potential sponsors for their respective clubs. 

It is now becoming quite evident that the monthly grant from the league is not sufficient to sustain the clubs and all related expenses that come with playing multiple home and away matches as well as paying salaries and accommodation. 

It, therefore, becomes imperative that clubs should start exploiting and monetising their growing social media presence. Again, clubs like Stars, Black Africa, Tigers, Orlando Pirates, Young African, Blue Waters and all others have the potential and great outreach on social media, and it will be easy to turn those social media numbers into real money for the clubs. 

Once they master the art of accumulating adequate traffic on their social media platforms, it will become much easy to go into corporate boardrooms and sell those mega numbers on their platforms as advertising space to companies. 

Not just social media, clubs must now also start considering the idea of publishing weekly or even monthly newsletters, where fans will get to read and see all the latest news and developments around their clubs. Those small things do really go a long way in boosting the clubs’ reputation, whilst also helping them commercially too.

Sponsors want clarity of purpose, and it therefore becomes even more important for clubs to clearly outline their values, principles and ambitions as sponsors want to know whether they are aligning their brands with the right entities or not. So, clubs, please go out there and fully utilise the power and potential of all communication streams. 

Until next time, sharp sharp!